I was intrigued in finding out what this movie all about when seeing the poster in 2 cinema chains. So I looked it up in the website and noticed that it was a new movie played in China and was quite successful there. The premise was about tomb raiders so it could be fun. On Saturday when my wife was having another 1 of those free night staying in hotel (but unfortunately for me spouse not allowed), I decided to watch 2 movies in a row. The first one was Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV which I reviewed in earlier post.
Brief Story Line
Movie started in a location somewhere in icy hilly mountain in China where a Western guy, Mr. Hendricks was threatening an elderly to inform the location of the last piece of 24 pieces which would reveal the secret to immortality. While Mr. Hendricks' mercenaries were guarding the mountain tribe people, one person seemed to be very calm compared to the others. That person who we later would find out to be Zhang Qilin (Jing Boran - Monster Hunt, China's highest grossing movie in 2015) fought off the mercenaries and managed to free the elderly and the others. He was informed by the elderly where this last piece was located. Before he left, Mr. Hendricks who was wounded in the hand after trying to shoot the elderly saw Qilin's face and questioned who he was.
Years later, a descendant from Wu's family of great tomb raiders named Wu Xie (Luhan - Chinese Korean singer from boyband EXO) was asking an editor to write down the story about his experience with his friends. His story started from when he was born till the day he graduated from architectural study in university. He was brought up by his 3rd uncle Wu Sanxing who did not want Wu Xie to become tomb raider. However, his curiosity could not be withhold and he investigated an old lady's tomb by himself. Wu Sanxing found this out and caught him there with intention of bringing Wu Xie back. They accidentally found a piece of item in that tomb and ran out after a bunch of bats rushed out from the tomb. This was caught in a phone camera by some spectators and was uploaded to internet which was seen by an old Mr. Hendricks. Noticing this item was very much related to his quest for immortality, he would later assign his team of mercenaries led by Ning (Ma Sichun - The Left Ear).
After doing some research, Wu Xie and Wu Sanxing found out that the secret of the item was about a treasure hidden in the tomb of Ming Dynasty and it was related to the immortality secret created by a sorceress (Mallika Sherawat - Hiss, Politics of Love) two thousand years before. There was also a prophecy that in few days time, the sorceress would live again and resurrecting her husband with his army. Once the location of this tomb was found out, Wu Sanxing decided that their family would start another tomb expedition. He enlisted few more team members and the last one joined them was Qilin. It was only later explained why he still looked the same age as during the incident many years ago involving Mr. Hendricks.
So Wu Sanxing, Wu Xie, Qilin and 4 other people went to the tomb location. However, their exploration was also interrupted with the interference of Ning and her team. Both teams would be fighting against one another to get to the secret first.
Which team would acquire it first? Would the sorceress be really resurrected like the prophecy said? Was it really a secret to immortality that she was hiding? Find them all in this interesting movie
End of Brief Story Line
To my surprise, I actually quite enjoyed this movie. I honestly only wanted to watch this one despite I did not know any of the stars, due to the box office result and it offered something different than the usual action movies. I was quite skeptical on the fighting sequences but when they involved Jing Boran, they were actually pretty good. Ma Sichun was also quite believable in doing those fighting sequences. Special effects of this movie were pretty decent. Not spectacular but not too obvious seen as computerized.
There were some goofy moments usually involving Luhan. I think maybe it's due to his looks that there were more women watching this movie in the theater. Btw, this movie did not seem to get the hypes it was supposed to deserve, resulting to very few people watching it in Jakarta. When I watched, I counted there were only less than 20 people including me. I think if you enjoy some tomb raiding/exploring movie, with some good fighting scenes, few funny moments and bromance (between Qilin and Wu Xie), plus some crazy expedition a la The Mummy or Tomb Raiders movies, then you can definitely give this one a try. However, if you are not a fan of such genre, then perhaps this would not be suitable for you.
Before I forgot, I was actually disappointed with the ending scene. I thought it created unnecessary confusion to an otherwise decent movie.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Note:
This movie was based on the internet novel written by Xu Lei with the title Daomu Biji (loosely translated Grave Robbers' Chronicles. It was also made into an 8 seasons TV series titled The Lost Tomb, airing only in China.
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